What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tidal Automation?

The price is reasonable in terms of the product’s functionality.

Tidal Automation licensing comes at affordable pricing and it is worth the features offered.

As per my experience, Tidal Automation is worth the price.

A week ago (mid-Feb, 2023), we were told verbally by a new (to us) sales agent that the price was quadrupling, with only two months before our renewal date.  This brings it to a point where it is much more expensive than the competitors and makes us go through purchasing again, leaving us to figure out how to automate our job schedule with virtually no warning. Not a fan.

It's cost-effective because it is available at a low cost. That saves us a lot of money compared to other tools.

There have been pricing increases, but with the reduction that our company obtained from Tidal this year, the pricing has become very acceptable for this type of product. It is fair, today, for what we use it for. If the price is increased, we may have to review things.

I'm only familiar with the on-prem licensing. I don't know about the cloud because we haven't done that. So far, they've been great. They're flexible about letting you test out some of the adapters before deciding if you want to buy them. If you buy different adapters, you get better prices on new ones. They work with you on licensing. So, it has been great. Everybody has different licensing, but I've had good luck with the licensing. They've been very accommodating. You basically need to buy a license for each physical server, but then you're allowed an unlimited number of virtual servers. There are no costs for upgrades and other enhancements. They just give you the upgrade files. We've been able to purchase more adapters because the cost of the product has been very reasonable. You pay for support, but it has been great. In terms of flexibility and transparency regarding costs, the licensing that we've been using has been great. There were no surprises. It was as advertised. I don't know anything about cloud licensing because that's probably the next step. We haven't done that yet, but its licensing has been fine. We have no complaints.

We are satisfied with the pricing of Tidal. It's in the moderate range and it feels very achievable for us. The base product itself, Tidal Automation, is licensed by the connections that you have to other systems. We review those whenever licensing comes up. If you want to add something like Tidal Explorer, or other modules, there is an additional cost. They have modified the licensing model a few times and there has been a bit of a learning curve, which is expected, but in general, it seems to be clear and transparent. And they're very willing to talk to you and answer questions if you have them.

Their pricing seems very fair. It is more than the other solutions, but the functionality and the support are very much there. You pay for the job scheduler, and then they have certain things that are built into it, such as the FTP processes. If you then want to do JD Edwards jobs, you need an adapter. If you want to do SQL jobs, there is another adapter. Similarly, if you want to do Oracle jobs, there is an adapter. It is like there is the base and then there are the adapters for the jobs that you want to do, but it seems that's also how they pay for each of those adapters and keep them up to date. When I first set Tidal up, it was just to schedule JD Edwards jobs. That's what I bought the license for, and then we also had these iSeries jobs. In order to do the iSeries jobs, I needed an iSeries adapter. Similarly, we have the SQL Server for which we wanted to schedule jobs. That's another adapter. So, it is just one of those situations where as the requirements change, it means another adapter. That makes it difficult for me to keep Tidal right-sized or right-licensed. The licensing model is very fair, and it is very easy too. I understand their model. That's why every time someone says that we need to do this, I know that we can do it, but it would require another adapter. We also pay for maintenance. Budgeting-wise, that makes it very easy. My trouble with budgeting for it is related to the new features that come down the pipe. It is not really a budget issue from the Tidal side. It is more related to our project. We just have to make sure that in the project, we have money set aside to buy the adapters needed for that project. I wish I had a big enough Tidal set up so that I just had unlimited licensing, or I wish the unlimited licensing was cheap enough. If you're not sure what license you need, Tidal will definitely give you a temporary license so that you can validate which license you need in order to get something to work, or how that adapter would work if you're trying to figure it out. They've been really great in that way.

For me, the key aspect was the linear predictability of costs. I know what handles I have to do, what things cost what. When we renewed having a regular cycle of renewal and re-evaluation kept us on track. For the years that we've been using it, we've had an increase in growth, yet we haven't had exponential increases in cost, which is really good. Just say from 2009, when we started with it, up to now, we've gone from 5,000 jobs to fivefold. We're at 25,000, 30,000 jobs. However, it wasn't like my costs went up fivefold or tenfold. That was really good for us. That was really important. The total cost of ownership, given its capacity for jobs and our ability to control infrastructure costs, have been very good. Having stood it up in AWS and having a group that's very active and having those sizings be very easy, what I'm finding is that the hardware requirements and thus the cost stays pretty low for the amount of stuff we're doing, and Tidal seems to respond well to our ability at the AWS layer to change that hardware without really having too many problems.

I have had no issues with the licensing. The solution enables admins and users to see the information relevant to them, but this is bundled as an add-on that we would have to pay for. I am attending a webinar on this feature next week. It remains to be seen how much it costs and what the value is. It's touted as giving you all the analytics that you want. We have had it 10 years and got by without this feature. Instead, we have DBAs who can write queries to pull out whatever we need from our SQL database. There are ways around everything, as there are a million ways to do stuff.

We purchase a seven-year contract. Once that's up, we'll look at renewals and costs and compare them again.

Our yearly licensing costs are between $10,000 to $20,000. They have always been reasonable with us. I like that non-production licensing is about half the cost of production licensing. Licensing is by adapter typically. We have had scenarios where we have had to take an adapter from one environment to another, and they've allowed us to do that. They have made it a very reasonable process. There's definitely a feeling that they will work with you. Budgeting is pretty predictable. They changed their model last time, which is why I'm not sure exactly how much it ended up costing. I know that our licensing guy did make a decision to license us in such a way that now we have a lot more flexibility based on adding VMs that can connect to Tidal and run jobs. So, it's not a problem to budget for it.

My experience was that it was very difficult to figure out the licensing cost on an annual basis. I don't know if they've changed the model, but I remember it would take a month to reconcile if we were being billed the proper amount because it was based on the number of CPUs; if they were test CPUs or production CPUs. I recall, and this was probably five years ago, that it was very difficult to reconcile the annual statement with what we had, and to verify that they were components we were using. Our ability to budget for the solution is a fairly easy aspect of it. One of the difficulties that I have internally has to do with the specialized adapters. I don't think it's well known within my company that I can't just snap my fingers and get an adapter. There's a cost associated with it and the license key has to be updated after we've made the outright purchase of it. I don't think there's familiarity, within our company, of budgeting for the coming year if it involves these additional Tidal components. That's nothing to do with Tidal. That's just an internal struggle.

The licensing model is very flexible and very transparent. I wish we were at a point where we could have a truly enterprise-wide license, but the way we licensed it limits our financial exposure in the most effective way. It's flexible for budgeting. I know what I need and I have licenses to cover those needs. If a project comes along that needs a new type of license or an added license, that would just be added to the project. Then, at the end of the year, we would have a new value that we would pay. The licensing is very supportable. I can handle it year-to-year. I know that the more people see Tidal, the more they're going to want to do stuff and the higher my licensing costs are going to go, but that's okay.

I'm not in the financial end, so I don't know what our licensing costs are. I know that Tidal integrates with a product called JAWS Workload Analytics, which will analyze your schedule, give you graphics and reports, tell you where your logjams are, and analyze all the data going in and out. We asked what the price is on that and it was about $200,000.

Right now, we are in a good position with the licensing model that we have with the Tidal vendor. So, we won't have any issues. even if we double in our current production. Initially, Tidal provided us some specs where if you have these number of jobs, then you come under this category. They usually provide a range of jobs from 2,000 to 10,000. You can use these specs for your infrastructure. Whether you have 2,000 or 8,000 jobs, Tidal should support it. This solution is a bit expensive in the current world where everybody is trying to cut down on certain things. Transparency regarding cost is okay. There were few changes that happen because of the move from Cisco to STA Group when we renewed our contract.

The licensing model's flexibility is awesome. The way it's licensed for us is per master and then per agent. We have an enterprise agreement, so we have unlimited agents, and we have it on 500 devices. I don't know how it could be easier to budget for Tidal, given that there are no costs for upgrades and other enhancements. There are increases over time, but unless you add functionality, such as buying other adapters, it's very easy to manage costs for maintenance and the like. In terms of the hardware that we purchased — VMs and storage and networking, and the VMs' SQL licensing — it was a little bit below $200,000. That doesn't include licensing. The hardware list is includes * a SQL cluster * a utility server that we use to migrate jobs from dev to prod * two masters in dev * a fault manager in both dev and prod * three Client Managers in dev and two Client Managers in prod * for each of those Client Managers we have a database * 11 VMs * 12 physical boxes. So we've got a pretty big environment.

Another advantage of Tidal is that it is a pretty affordable scheduler tool that lets us do a lot. You get a lot of bang for the buck. It has always seemed pretty reasonable to me. The licensing model is hugely flexible. In fact, sometimes we get a little bit lost on which model should we go with. Over time, it has adjusted and changed. But the current model that we have is to run with enterprise license agreements. We do not have to worry about how many agents we add and remove. That has been the easiest for us. They have options to do one-, two-, or three-year renewals. You can space out your renewals or do things like an enterprise license agreement. You can dial into, "Hey, I just want to run this many hosts." They cover a lot of options for you. It may not make sense for a smaller shop to run an enterprise agreement. They might just want to run five agents. In their case, having that option is huge. Given that there are no costs for upgrades and other enhancements, it is really easy to budget for Tidal. We have not had any issues.

Our annual maintenance cost is competitive for what we have and what they do. We haven't bought anything new in terms of adapters or new agents. We did a purchase a few years ago. So, for now, we are good. It's possible that, if things change, we might buy some other stuff, e.g., a ServiceNow adapter. I have never had a problem with the solution’s licensing model in terms of its flexibility and its transparency regarding costs. You could debate whether it's expensive. It should be that much or less, but it's pretty clear regarding what you get and what you pay. It has been a bit of time since we bought something new. For the most part, the company is pretty upfront, straightforward, and transparent in my dealings with them. I don't have any issues. As far as licensing and new components, we haven't had to do that in a while. There are project, system, and server costs. Some of the things that they are doing is introducing new products. They are introducing what they call their Repository, which is a way for you to move a job. That doesn't cost anything to us, because it is reusing a tool called Transporter. The repository is the successor to Transporter, so we already own it and are sort of grandfathered in. But that new product requires a server and database, so now we have to go out and get a server and database. So, there is a cost there. The landscape requires a number of systems for which there are costs. You don't have to do that, as you can just live with it on one system. It all depends on how you want to design the architecture. The landscape, or the architecture, depending on what you do, and if you want to do it correctly, will need a master and backup. You also need a Client Manager. You will need those three systems along with the fourth system, the heartbeat, which is the monitor between the master and backup. There are costs, from a licensing perspective. It has been okay. We haven't had to add anything in the last three years or so. Lately, there are costs of maintaining, managing, hardware costs, etc. That comes with the territory. It comes with implementing a tool for managing jobs and SAP RADIUS. Tidal is cheap, not really that expensive, between the licensing, hardware, etc. We certainly have a lot more expensive products.

The pricing is pretty reasonable. That seems to help a lot versus other companies. There are no other fees aside from the standard licensing fees. There are other products out there where you pay based on how many jobs you run and so on, and I know that's very frustrating for users. The solution’s licensing model in terms of its flexibility and transparency regarding costs is pretty good. A person can buy the license, and if you decide to stop support, you can do that but still have the product. So, it's not like you're paying constantly to keep that license alive. Certainly, you want to keep support going too. Once you buy it, you own it. It's not like I have to keep paying somebody to keep using it. If you are willing to shop around to other vendors, you can possibly get a good price on your support license.

We pay maintenance annually through BlueHouse of about $9,000. That i's for our two environments: production and test and some adapters to integrate with other systems.

BMC is really expensive. The other solutions are about the same price. I think Tidal is even cheaper than the others, such as CA, Stonebranch, and JAMS. Our licensing model for Tidal is on an annual basis. It is very good and works well for us. Tidal's licensing is very transparent and simple. It lets you know, for the amount you use, that's the price that you pay. So, we buy X number of licenses, and we know that this is where we are. I'm very happy with that. I saw the licensing modules on other platforms, and I didn't like them. Other companies and solutions would calculate the connections, adapters, and instances. I think that's the reason that BMC was pretty expensive: They just didn't understand what our needs are. The solution has no hidden costs. It helps me to plan forward into the future. I know that I can add another 100 or a thousand jobs, and that's how much it will cost me today.

We have an enterprise contract, so if we want to add another agent, or if we want to add another master, we don't have any restrictions on those things. Other vendors don't have that flexibility. For me, as an admin, that makes it easy because I don't have to think about what a new master is going to cost or what a new agent is going to cost. If someone needs a new agent and they need to run a job from that agent, we just go ahead and do it. If we're in Dublin, Ireland and someone wants a new master because there's a group over there that wants to adopt Tidal, we can just say, "Sure, get a new license, create, and you're fine." For the license that we have, the flexibility is great. I don't know if other people aren't happy with the licensing model because they have a non-enterprise license where they have to think about everything they change. We're negotiating our new license now for April, which is when we have to renew. We've usually gone with a three-year license. The numbers that the new company has put forward haven't really changed significantly from our past renewal. People here are pretty happy with that. It's not like the new company came on and jacked the prices up exponentially. The new prices that we've received seem reasonable and comparable to the marketplace.